The dealers are brutally slow!! I feel your pain Daryn. If you get stuck early, it is so brutal trying to grind back when you are getting so few hands an hour.

One thing to help immediately .. Allow dealer rotations to be 45 mins or an hour. Changing dealers slows down the game so much.

That and fire the crappy dealers ..

yeah i overreacted. i mean, it definitely IS unacceptable, but there's no reason to be a dick and i apologized. i'll just be way more observant until things settle in.

Made my first trip up today. I made sure I got there early cause of the long lists I've been reading about. Got there around 11:30 and caught them just starting a 4th table. Room filled up quickly even for a random Monday. As said before, dealers are still new, but I cut them a lot of slack. It IS a new room and it was easy to see most were new to the game. The worst were the floor persons. They kept interupping the dealers for things in the MIDDLE of hands. One brought a rack of whites for the tray amd made the dealer fill up with 6 players in a pot on the flop. Pretty comical watching the dealer try to do everything with one hand cause he couldn't set the deck down. I mentioned it to the floor later but didn't seem to get anywhere. Also, a lot of new players. The first hand on the new table had a 3 way all in pre..
AJo raise to 30, A10 shove for 200... 44 finds a call.. and AJo couldn't wait to get his money in. I tried to hide my smile. Gotta watch the newbies though. Guy to my left built up an 850 stack, asked for a rack, cashed out 600, put it in his pocket. All in front of the players, dealers, and floor. I explained how that wasn't allowed, especially in a nl game and everyone looked at me like I had 3 heads. Finally, the floor over heard the arguement and made the guy put the 600 back on the table. Overall, a good day and looks like this will be a good room with some time.

He cashed out $600 and stayed at the table? Comical. I've asked the floor twice on rulings that they had no clue and both times asked them to go get the rules. It's fine though because I'll take it over not having a poker room 10 min from my house. Totally agree about the 3-way all in- I had KdKh utg, raise to $12,SB and BB call. Flop comes QdJd4s. I bet $20. SB calls. BB folds. Turn is Ks. I bet $45. SB raises to $80. I flat. River is Kc. I bet $50. SB goes all in for $120. SB shows Qh10s.
Total pot=$470

Yup, didn't think anything of pulling profits off the table to walk a winner. The games are great, but I'm really just waiting for the oxford casino to open. Bangor is a 2 hour ride and I'm just 8.5 miles from the oxford location. But I'm on vacation this week and needed a poker fix now that we can finally play. One quick tip for first timers to Bangor... When they call your name on the list, they will announce it over the PA. Problem is that there are no actual SPEAKERS in the poker room/racebook. You have to be just outside the actual room on the gaming floor to hear the announcements. I saw quite a few guys miss their call because they were either sitting at the racebook seats or watching the poker games.

Does anyone have any opinion regarding how good (or bad) of an employer Penn National is? They are one of several companies vying for a license in Western MA, so i'm just curious how they are considered by people in your area.

Bad beat jackpot just got hit today. My buddy (it was not at his table) just texted me. 7K to the loser. 63 > 22 Pretty wild it got hit as fast as it did.

2 new tables coming Memorial Day weekend.

Table shufflers in, no power source YET. (LOL)

New crew of dealers start training this week and it has been stated only the strong will survive. Haha. We'll see.

Much has improved but still no player rewards for those of us paying rake on a daily basis. Maybe we could contact Penn National Gaming for better results??

Are the wait lists still pretty strong on the weekends? Glad to see more tables are coming

It's rare to see long lines there anymore.

Thanks for the reports - saw a (cheesy) commercial on tv, didn't even know ME finally got its casinos up and running, lol. Guess I don't have to go to FW this summer (but I still may, FW is FW).

Good news as well because I decided I might go straight for my Bachelor's after my assoc, another good reason to pick Orono.

I overheard one of the floor members telling a pit boss that the tables were coming in today.

Also, I have heard that "perks" for us poker players would be coming in around Winter. Not real sure about that, but that is just what I have heard.

Dealers are still making same mistakes. Games are still SLOW. I've been going a lot less. There just isn't as much money in play anymore.

i haven't been in what seems like 3 weeks. been busy, but still i had a few days where i could have gone, but meh.

6 tables now.

any update on the dealer quality?

I thought I'd be there every day, but going is just an afterthought now. I'd rather just play in the local games.

I believe the second round of dealers are being trained. As for the current dealers, there's a few that have not sped up a bit. Watching them fumble with cards and chips is a bit tilting. the auto shufflers are up and running but a couple of the dealers are still managing to go slooooowww!I groan when they sit down.... However, on the flip side, there's a few that are fast, competent, and keep the games moving.

The dealers are really hit and miss. <names> are all pretty much flawless from a technical standpoint and several others are just a matter of practice/experience away from being on that level, but some are brutal and unfortunately don't seem like they'll improve too much.

I played 54 of the first 60 days that the poker room was open. I'm now really considering boycotting until <name> is fired. <names> are both excellent on floor, but <name> is an absolute bull in a china shop. It's at the point now where whenever she comes in I cash out, as she's massively detrimental to the entire poker room and just seeing her now brings me to physically shake with tilt. The thing that blows my mind is that pretty much EVERYONE seems to feel the similarly about her, even within the company. She slows every table down, can't fill seats with any modicum of efficiency, and rubs so many customers the wrong way that I'm sure that over time she'll cost the company a ton of money, so I have no idea what why they haven't fired her yet but it has to happen immediately.

The parent company has made it very clear that their main goal is getting as much money off the tables and into their pockets as quickly as possible, hence the highest rake in the country, which is penny wise and pound ******ed.

The bottom line is that those in charge really don't understand how poker is different in Maine than it is in other places. Without repeat customers, the poker room is completely unsustainable, and they're making absolutely no effort to ensure that people want to come back.

Two months ago I would have guessed that I'd put in 60+ hours a week at Hollywood all summer. Now I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping that playing online becomes a real option again as soon as possible.

I have refrained from using names of employees, but since you opened the door, yes, these guys are the cream of the crop. I absolutely love when they sit down at my table.

Furthermore, your assessment of <name> is spot on as well (which is unfortunate). I have not spent nearly the time playing with her on the floor (or nearly as much time there as you have), but she is a tilting presence for sure and detrimental to the success of the room.

With all that said (and having a good idea which "regular" you are), I would not be opposed if you boycotted for the only reason that I can win more money since I would have one less competent (not that their are many) player to worry about.

But back to casino, how was this weekend been there? Busy as they expected?

2nd table opened at noon, haven't checked since then.

They have seemingly overshot their estimated business for this holiday weekend it seems then .. especially considering 2nd table on a week day usually launches waaaaay before noon.

They underestimated the initial interest there would be when they opened and responded to that overwhelming interest in such a way that demonstrates to me a fundamental misunderstanding of how the poker economy works, especially in a place like Maine.

It's hard to blame them for not listening when they have four tables running constantly, as they did for a while, even though I'm sure everyone reading this thread is aware of how quickly a $6/hand rake will kill a central Maine cardroom.

But to still act like nothing's wrong and to continue to actively ignore so much player feedback is legitimately offensive to me. The amount of foresight it took to see all of this coming is staggeringly little yet they let it all happen anyway.

The place will (hopefully) be packed all summer, which means whoever is making these decisions still won't learn their lesson. They might as well remove those two new tables in September, though, because they'll never need them ever again if they keep the rake so high.

I know my last couple of posts have been pretty negative, and I should be clear that I really like playing there when she-who-shall-not-be-named isn't running the floor. I just feel like all of the regulars have all been patient beyond belief with that place and management has done absolutely nothing to fix the real problems and they don't even seem to care.

With the shufflers in place I don't notice the slow dealers as much but the thing that tilts me even before I sit down is how slow they are at the counter when I buy my chips. It is truly mind boggling why it still takes the same people who have worked for 3 months doing the same thing two whole minutes to count out $300.

That's my little complaint.

Does anyone know how many tables were running at the max on Friday and Saturday night?

Jesus. $6 a hand rake? Please tell me that this is at 2-5+ and that there is no hourly to boot (not that it matters, that is a goat ****).

Maybe I'll just go to FW this summer, I'm in Portland so it would almost be the same drive anyway.